Friday with Fred Astaire
Friday with Fred Astaire
The movie star sings and narrates Rankin/Bass stop motion “The Easter Bunny is Comin’ to Town” (1977)
Fred Astaire narrates a stop motion Easter movie in 1977’s The Easter Bunny is Comin’ to Town. The film for television is entertaining in spite of its flaws. Beginning with a mock news report, and borrowing characters and stop motion puppetry from the earlier 1970 TV hit Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, which Mr. Astaire also narrates as the same character, the hour show sets out to explain Easter traditions.
“Everybody shared everything and worshipped the Lord in their own way,” goes one cringeworthy line describing a fictitious town that mixes dubious notions with the origins of the springtime holiday. A rabbit, named Sunny “after the Easter morning sunrise and the rebirth it represents,” is the main character. Sunny is an orphan born in the woods near an all-children village called Kidville populated by orphans making their own way. Sunny turns out to be a capitalist who wants to expand Kidville’s production output and sell goods in other towns. When he stumbles across a town through the pass where “pretty flowers and children were against the law” and free speech is suppressed, Sunny asks a brave villager: “Who makes these laws?!”
When a boy king’s ruling matriarchal aunt mandates that everyone must eat green vegetables, Sunny launches a subversive plan to distribute hard cooked eggs with colored shells. Everything gets sillier and more ridiculous as the writers, who must’ve had a blast coming up with these preposterous scenarios, explain everything from Easter parades, new clothes and chocolate bunnies to Easter egg coloring, hunts and rolls, jelly beans, and, of course, the Easter Bunny.
Don’t expect anything but stop motion novelty and seven catchy songs from this Rankin/Bass production, which debuted on ABC on April 6, 1977 and Fred Astaire’s smooth voice in narration and singing the title song and “All You Have to Do is Think 'Can Do”. With Mr. Astaire voicing an engineer who’s also a postman—accompanied by a fine likeness featuring his prominent chin—singing with his underappreciated voice, The Easter Bunny is Comin’ to Town makes a colorful, harmless myth.
Friday with Fred Astaire